Review of This Gun for Hire

This Gun For Hire" 1942, classic film noir with Ladd and Lake. Viewed at the 2017 Noir City week in Hollywood. Noir means Black in French, and Film Noir is the appelation invented by French film critics to describe the kinds of low budget dark but sprightly B crime melodramas churned out by the Hollywoid studios in the forties and early fifties. They were basically made to appeal to a lower middlebrow clientele as a kind of pulp fiction on celluloid. However, the craftsmen who worked on them were experts in their field and many of these films are now seen in retrospect as top drawer quasi-art films and minor treasures of the american Cinemateque. One of the very best of the crop, "This Gun For Hire", opened this years Noir City edition at the Ancient Egyptian theatre on Hollywood Blvd. in the heart of the Hollywood tourist belt. Directed by Frank Tuttle, a respected veteran helmer for Paramount, TGFH was no B movie as it featured rising star Veronica Lake opposite established leading man Robert Preston, plus hefty star character actor, Laird Cregar, but it became a gigantic hit with the introduction of Alan Ladd in his screen debut as a cold blooded gun for hire whose hardness is softened by an incredibly attractive and insanely beautiful Veronica Lake. It is seen on the original poster that Preston's name is far bigger than Ladd below, but Preston was quickly forgotten as Ladd became Hollywood's biggest wartime star. The chemistry between Ladd and Lake was so potent that they became a starring couple throughout the decade in such thrillers as The Glass Key, The Blue Dahlia, and Saigon. The interesting amoral twist in this picture is that Lake, who is the fiancée of detective Preston, dumps him when she goes soft on her killer captor Ladd and helps him get away. When Lake started sporting a "peekaboo" hairdo with one lock of her long blond hair covering her right eye this became all the rage and was imitated by women all over the country. This being wartime the government banned the hairstyle for fear it could get caught in the machinery of defense industry factories which employed mostly women. Apparently some such cases actually occurred. For the period of her teaming with Ladd in the forties Veronica Lake was even more popular (and rightfully so) than reigning glamour queens like Betty Grable, Lana Turner, et al. Unfortunately her career went into decline too soon due to alcoholism and personal problems. Nevertheless, in Gun For Hire she remains a dazzling female monument of Film Noir and film in general. Mistakenly believing that I had already seen "This Gun For Hire" years ago I quickly realized I hadn't, and it just blew me away ... especially that amazing young lady, Veronica Lake!